Librarian of the Future

The Unwritten Vol. 7, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

I was really excited to see this volume come into my library so close on the heels of finally reading the previous collection, so much so that I coerced (read: said please to) the cataloger in charge of it to put a hold on it for me as soon as she could, you know, just in case there was a run on it. Relatedly, why isn’t there a run on this series? It is so many kinds of awesome!

If you will recall, last time around I was a little boggled by the sheer number of stories in the collection, so I was very glad to see that there were just a few straightforward issues in this one. And it starts with my favorite horrible person, Mr. Bun, whose presence was sorely lacking last time, so all is forgiven! Oh, Mr. Bun, you are such an awful human bunny.

So, yes. In the first story, we see Mr. Bun hanging out with The Tinker, whose story I don’t quite remember but whose costume is amusing. They get caught up in a bit of a mass exodus from… fiction, I guess, and it seems like things in the land of stories are about to be going very terribly.

Then we head back to the land of the mostly non-fictional and meet up with a badass Australian aboriginal detective who is basically my new favorite character. She’s investigating a weird cult devoted to Tommy Taylor as lord and savior, and she meets up with our good friend what’s-his-face from the Grid, who has come from England to join up with the cult for some reason or other. Things get very culty, and then they get awesome with a unicorn and the return of Pullman’s hand and a very odd one-man show.

The last story is… I’m not sure where it fits, chronologically, so it’s a bit confusing. I may need to go back to the last couple of volumes and see if I can figure that one out. Or maybe Scott will remember when he finishes it — a benefit of reading things with other people!

I definitely liked what this set of stories did, especially with the whole badass detective thing, because I’m a sucker for detectives who don’t quite follow the rules. I also think the [spoiler] that happens to said detective could be very interesting for future stories. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes, so much so that I may have already stocked up on those single issues I keep threatening to buy. Oh, money, I will miss you so. But on the plus side, I don’t have to wait eight million years to read the next issues!

Recommendation: As always, I say go find this series and start reading it!